Digg/Buzz It Up

POLITICO 44

Sen. Chris Dodd’s decision to remain chairman of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee increases the odds that regulatory reform will get through Congress this year — if only because Dodd would like to tout a crackdown on Wall Street as he campaigns for reelection next year.

“He’s going to try and polish his consumer protection creds and run on that as part of his reelection campaign,” predicted Brian Gardner, an analyst with Keefe, Bruyette & Woods and a former GOP Hill staffer, who read Dodd’s decision as a signal the committee will move more aggressively than most analysts thought on regulatory reform.

Had Dodd taken over for the late Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) as chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, Sen. Tim Johnson — a South Dakota Democrat friendlier to financial interests — would most likely have taken over at Banking. But with Dodd in charge, Wall Street will have to deal with a chairman who has already thrown his weight behind the Obama administration’s proposal to create a new independent agency to regulate consumer financial products such as mortgages and credit cards.

At a press briefing Wednesday, Dodd said he was staying at Banking “because, obviously, a lot is left to be done on the committee.”

“The major reform efforts of financial regulation are in front of us. And I want to get that job done,” he said. “This is important work: people losing their homes, the foreclosure issue is still with us, retirement accounts, the economy is still struggling,” he said. “Obviously, with higher unemployment rates, a lot needs to be done on that committee.”

Travis Plunkett, legislative director with the Consumer Federation of America, said Dodd’s decision to remain at Banking “bodes very well for Congress’s ability to be able to move important consumer protection legislation through in the next six months.”

“It’s no slam-dunk; it never is,” Plunkett acknowledged. “But nobody’s in a better position to move significant consumer protection legislation than Sen. Dodd. And he’s shown a strong commitment to it,” Plunkett said, pointing toward Dodd’s work on credit card reform as a key example.

Yet there are plenty of factors outside of Dodd’s control that make the path ahead for regulatory reform uncertain.

First and foremost, of course, is the debate over health care reform, which threatens to suck up all of the available time and oxygen on Capitol Hill.

“As everyone else in town does at this time of the year, you count from Dec. 23 backwards, and you’re running out of time in the Senate,” said Richard Hunt, president of the Consumer Bankers Association, which represents retail banking.

Second is the economy: To the extent that voters — and their representatives — believe that it’s getting better, there will be less momentum behind a push to crack down on Wall Street.

“You don’t have the sense of urgency, you don’t have the sense of crisis that existed several months ago,” said one financial services lobbyist.

The Obama administration is hoping to remind Americans of the tumult of last fall in the next few weeks, using the Sept. 15 anniversary of the fall of Lehman Bros. to argue for the need to pass new rules for Wall Street.

As part of that effort, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has scheduled a town hall on CNBC for Thursday night.

Dodd said Wednesday that he still thinks he and House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) can get reform legislation done by the end of the year, but he cautioned that it was more important to get reform right than to meet that deadline.

“This is about as large a change that would occur in the financial regulatory structure since the 1930s, and we realize that undertaking that responsibility requires very careful consideration,” Dodd said.

Lobbyists said Frank will continue with hearings on regulatory reform in September, marking up four separate bills in October that will come to the House floor in November.

Dodd is a joke. He helped ruin the economy with Frank when they "took care of Fannie and Freddie" and he still has his corrupt hands in it all. Did'nt know he had a special loan? How can people this dumb still be in office. Just like Rangel forgot and Geithner did'nt know turbo was wrong. Washington is one big sess pool and needs to be drained. Fresh water needs to be added or we will only get more stench!

“This is about as large a change that would occur in the financial regulatory structure since the 1930s, and we realize that undertaking that responsibility requires very careful consideration,” Dodd said.

It should be, but it is not. In fact the largest change came in 1999, when a bipartisan Congress overwhelmingly passed GRAMM LEACH BLILLEY, largely repealing GLASS STEAGAL. The notion that Dodd, Shelby, or any Wall Street subsidized banking commitee member was ever consumer oriented is utterly ridiculous. The fact is our banking system is too pathetically weak to withstand the rigors of discipline and accountability we desperately need. Indeed, most people completely ignore the most important aspect of government support, $ 8 trillion in credit market guarentees propping up the entire financial system. Reform won't occur until mark to market exposes the banks' books, and Congress's complicity. How can we have any confidence otherwise?

Senator-soon-to-be-unemployed-Federal-Elitist Christopher Dodd is very vulnerable to defeat in his Connecticut reelection bid next year. Representative-Elitist-empress Barnabus Frank is as secure in his horozontial "position" as the 75 percent voter's (lemming's) approval in Massachusetts can give him.

Dodd's reelection loss in 2010 is our best bet for not having continued economic chaos.

Mostly, as a result of the “Gramm-Leach-Bliley ACT” that was passed in 1999 but never enforced. To get a glimpse of what has happened over this past decade let's take a look at the following Url that summarizes the "Financial Services Modernization Act":

“Wikipedia” reports that this "The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA)" (http://banking.senate.gov/con... allowed commercial and investment banks to consolidate various brands. In addition, banking and insurance programs were allowed to combine under one underwriting service in 1999. After reading a summary of this ACT, five items in particular caught my attention that should have been a no-brainer to review. They should also get your attention below because it was evident that our Congress, FDIC, SEC, and FTC and other agencies should have exerted more rigorous control over these programs.

1) Requires each bank and each non-bank party to a CRA (Community Reinvestment Act - 1977) agreement to make a public report each year on how the money and other resources involved in the agreement were used.

2) Directs the Federal Reserve Board to conduct a study of the default rates, delinquency rates, and profitability of CRA loans.

3) Requires annual independent audits of the financial statements of each Federal Reserve Bank and the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.

4) Requires the Federal banking agencies to conduct a study of banking regulations regarding the delivery of financial services, and recommendations on adapting those rules to online banking and lending activities.

5) Protects FDIC resources by restricting claims for the return of assets transferred from a holding company to an insolvent subsidiary bank.

You'll also become interested in understanding and knowing why certain other processes were just not administered properly.

FANNIE & FREDDIE don't let Wall Street, or either party in congress, off the hook. Deregulation allowed inadequate capital reserves, excessive leverage, conflicts of interest, and **** poor accounting, and transparency. For example, Goldman Sachs has used 'mark to market' for decades, and is arguably our strongest financial. A republican Congress passed GRAMM-LEACH-BLILLEY in 1999, with strong democratic support, partially repealing Glass Steagal, and authorizing future imlementation of Basel II. When combined with the consequences of the COMMODITIES FUTURES MODERNIZATION ACT OF 2000's prohibition of regulating derivatives, George Soros's prediction of a disastrous regulatory race to the bottom came to pass.